Marie Janus, 27, of Monroe with Spencer, 2, and baby Willow. She had a liver transplant in March. / U-M

Detroit Free Press staff writer

Dr. Christopher Sonnenday

Wolverine vs. Buckeye Challenge for Life

When: 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Nov. 17 Where: Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor What: A blood drive also will be under way that day. To register for an appointment, go to redcrossblood.org or www.wolverinesforlife.org and use the promotion code “goblue.” Representatives from Be the Match also will offer participants the chance to sign up on the national bone marrow registry. The Challenge for Life continues online at www.wolverinesforlife.org, and ends at 11:59 p.m. Nov. 28, in advance of the Nov. 30 football game between Ohio State and U-M.

Clearing up common myths about organ donation

Dr. Christopher Sonnenday, surgical director of liver transplantation at U-M, says he has heard lots of misconceptions about organ donation over the years. But, he says, people shouldn’t worry that doctors won’t try as hard to save them if they’re organ donors or that their organs will be misused. “I think there’s a lot of misunderstandings and appropriate concerns,” he says. He cleared up some common misconceptions during a phone interview last week: Organ donors don’t get good care: “People worry that if they become an organ donor, they won’t receive the best level of care from the treating physicians. That’s not true because No. 1, the treating doctor rarely, if ever, knows a person’s organ donor status. And No. 2, the people who do know about the organ procurement are almost never the treating physician. They rarely, if ever, overlap. ... They are completely separate systems and when people understand that, it improves their comfort level.” Organs don’t go to good use: “I think telling stories like Marie Janus’ help people see that organ donors save lives. They change and save lives. I see it every day. These are people who have no other options and it is profound to see that. ... One organ donor can save eight lives — if we’re fortunate enough to be able to use the heart, two lungs, liver, pancreas, intestines and two kidneys. That’s a pretty profound gift.” The organ donor will feel pain during harvesting: “First of all, the majority of organ donors are brain-dead, so there’s little concern about pain. The organ donation process happens after death.” If you decide to sign up to become an organ donor, Sonnenday says it’s vital to tell your loved ones about your decision. “It’s important that people explain their wishes to family members; the biggest tragedy is when a potential donor becomes available, and nobody knows what their personal wishes were and the family struggles with making that decision themselves.

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Marie Janus is a reason to think long and hard about what you’ll want when death comes for you.

She is a reason to at least consider how years after your loved ones cry at your funeral and pack away your belongings, you can still bring joy, hope and a longer life to someone else.

Marie Janus has joy and hope and a longer life now, thanks to an organ donor.

A few months ago, she didn’t know whether she’d live to see her daughter’s first birthday. The 23-year-old from Monroe had grown increasingly tired after the start of the new year. She thought perhaps she was anemic or just exhausted from caring for her 4-month-old daughter, Willow, and 2-year-old son, Spencer.

“I was always sluggish. I thought that was normal because I had a newborn, and I probably just was not getting enough sleep,” says Janus.

But when jaundice began to set in, she realized there was nothing normal about her symptoms.

“My skin started to turn real yellow, and the whites of my eyes were as yellow as the sun,” she says. “I mean they were visible from across the room.”

She was admitted to a Toledo hospital on March 5, and transferred the next day to the University of Michigan Health System, where doctors told her she needed a liver transplant.

“Every day, we were just hoping,” Janus says. “Maybe something will happen and I won’t need it. Maybe it’ll turn itself around. It never did.”

Her husband, Joshua Janus, stayed with her at the hospital while they waited for a donor liver. Her parents and extended family cared for Willow and Spencer.

Everyone could see that Janus was growing sicker by the day; she grew increasingly worried that she wouldn’t be around to see her kids graduate from high school or to dance at their weddings.

Doctors were puzzled by what had caused acute liver failure in a person as young and seemingly healthy as Janus.

“When you hear about it, you think, ‘oh, they must have been abusing alcohol or drugs, or something.’ But there are a lot of cases like mine,” says Janus. “They still don’t know what caused my liver to fail.”

“About 5% of liver transplants in the U.S. are done for acute liver failure,” Sonnenday says. “It can be caused by a variety of things, including viral illness, unusual autoimmune conditions, and a certain percent of the time, we never figure out what caused it, unfortunately.”

By the time Janus had a transplant on March 19, “I’d gained 70 pounds. And I’m a small person. I’m normally 98 pounds,” Janus says.

“If it wasn’t for somebody saying that they wanted to be an organ donor, I would have died that week. I wouldn’t be here. They told my family, unless we get her a transplant, you have to ... come say good-bye because she’s not going to make it.”

Janus did make it. She sailed through surgery and was released from the hospital March 26 — in time to celebrate Easter with her family.

“To be able to celebrate Easter with my entire family and sit in church and receive communion, and to be able to be here for Mother’s Day,” was a big deal,” says Janus. “It was my daughter’s first Mother’s Day. That day was crazy, because I might never have experienced it.”

Sonnenday says too many people die waiting for a new liver or a heart or a lung or another organ — 18 die every day in the U.S. They die clinging to the hope that another family grappling with loss will see the value in helping others.

“There are about 28,000 transplants done each year, but there are currently over 120,000 people on the waiting list. We’ve got a 4-1 supply-and-demand discrepancy,” he says.

To close that gap, and to encourage more people to sign up to become organ donors, the University of Michigan is taking part in the Wolverine vs. Buckeye Challenge for Life. All day on Nov. 17, fans can visit Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor and Be a Hero at the Big House by signing up to become an organ donor through Gift of Life Michigan. The American Red Cross will be on hand for a blood drive, and participants also can sign up to become bone marrow donors before touring the club levels of the stadium.

To add a competitive edge to the campaign, U-M is going head-to-head with Ohio State University — one of its biggest rivals on the gridiron — to see which school can recruit more donors on that day.

“You don’t really think about it until it affects your life personally,” Janus says.

“Look at the people you love the most. If something were to happen to them, would you donate?”

So go out to the Big House on Nov. 17. Give blood, sign up to be an organ donor, and know that you’re doing something bigger and better than yourself when you do.

Janus can’t put into words how much she appreciates the selflessness of her donor family. She wrote them a letter to express her gratitude, and lives each day like it’s a gift. She’s now planning a double birthday party for her kids.

“I hope I will be able to see them celebrate 40 more birthdays,” she says.